


Meeting

by sexybee



Category: Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-21
Updated: 2003-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexybee/pseuds/sexybee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The marquis de Carabas reaches an arrangement with one of the newest members of London Below.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sekala

It was early one morning, on a day so cold that clouds of steam rose up from the breath of the few people unlucky enough to be abroad at that hour, that the marquis de Carabas first met George Bailey. 

The sun had just tinged the London smog the color of a robin's breast when the marquis vaulted the low wall adorned with falling-apart gargoyles and crossed the rooftop to a ramshackle lean-to. He peered at the pile of wrinkled flesh and tattered clothing that was all that there was of Bailey. The marquis looked unimpressed, but, to be sure, he always looked unimpressed. It was part of his stock in trade. He stirred a few of the rags near Bailey's head and muttered in the general direction of a rook that perched on a piece of crumbling chimney-work. "I hardly see what all the fuss is about." The bird cocked its black head, and cawed once. "Oh all right. Just remember, you owe me for this." 

The marquis stared at Bailey a moment longer, then kicked him in the ribs, not hard enough to injure, just enough to fully get his attention. "Wake up," he said. 

Bailey opened his eyes, and saw the shadow of authority stretching above him. "No," he cried, throwing an arm above his head to ward off the expected blows. He pressed his back against the comforting security of the concrete. 

"Oh, get up," the marquis cried, annoyed. He reached down and pulled Bailey up. 

Now, with the man no longer between him and the sun, Bailey was able to get a good look at his visitor. The marquis was dressed primarily in odds and ends of dilapidated clothing, like the homeless people that Bailey had seen huddled in increasing numbers under bridges and on street corners, the ones he'd never noticed until he'd started living on the roofs. But over these rag-tags, the marquis sported a black leather coat with a pinched waist and flared tails, like a cross between an old-fashioned dandy and one of those new-fangled teddy boys or whatever they called themselves these days. "You're not the police," Bailey croaked, shivering and rubbing his arms to get some warmth back into them. 

"My!" The marquis raised his eyebrows and grinned. "What a perspicacious fellow, you are. Do tell me, though, what was it that gave me away? The lack of uniform? The hair? The general air that I do not, in fact, give one shit about the law?" 

"Who are you?" Bailey squawked, fear beginning to give way to anger. These were his rooftops, the only things left he could call his own, and he would defend them from any interlopers who dared try take them away. 

"If I say none of your business, you'll just keep asking, won't you?" The marquis cocked his head and sighed at the rook, the sort of sigh that said _Must I deal with this idiot?_ Bailey turned his head to look at the bird, but it merely eyed the marquis and cawed once, sharply. _Get on with it_. The marquis inclined his head and turned back to Bailey. "I am many things to many people, but at present it is perhaps best if you think of me as your procurer," he said. 

Bailey frowned. "A procurer? Like, what, one o' them men who sells women?" His lips pressed into a thin line. _It weren't right, that sort of thing happening to them young girls_. 

The marquis twirled his hands in a grand arc. "Girls, boys, men, women, donkeys, pigs, whatever you fancy. A cask of Amontillado, the crown jewels of Russia, the head of your enemy. A silver knife cast by a virgin in the light of the full moon. Anything and," he smiled and spread his arms wide, as if to encompass the world, " _everything_ your heart could possibly desire." He leaned forward slightly, bringing his hands together and narrowing his eyes into a conspiratorial gleam. "Other stuff, too, if that's what you desire, and _if_ you can pay the price." 

Bailey's eyes were wide in terror and amazement. He had stumbled into a dream somehow. Surely, surely that must be it. He felt the question drag itself out of his throat. "Other stuff?" 

"Information, my good fellow." He wrapped his arm companion-like around Bailey's shoulders. "You want to know why the stars shine? How to scry the future in a bowl of bat's blood? What the winds whisper to each other at night, when you're just on the edge of sleep? I know it all, and more," the marquis said. "Just name what you want. My prices are very reasonable." 

"You're the devil!" Bailey cried in fear, making the sign of the cross with his fingers. But the man in black just laughed, a silken, throaty sound. 

"The devil. Now really. And do you _really_ think that the devil would be up here traipsing about on rooftops, bothering to tempt an old man covered in pigeon shit, and getting his boots mucky? No, I'm afraid the devil is another one of those comforting illusions you're going to have to dispense of. Although," and he leaned in close to make his point, his voice dropping to a whisper that chilled the skin on Bailey's neck, "never let anyone convince you that there is no Hell." 

The old man's voice quavered. "Who _are_ you then?" 

The marquis grinned, his white teeth gleaming against his skin, and Bailey was suddenly reminded of a cat that has sighted a plump, juicy starling, injured on the ground. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am the marquis de Carabas, premiere resident of London Below. I would add 'at your service,' but I'm afraid that would give the wrong impression." He sketched a bow with a wave of his hand. 

"London below? What, like down there?" Bailey pointed at the bustling streets. 

The marquis frowned, hiding his sharp teeth, and Bailey felt himself breathe easier again. "No, no, no. Like up here and below there and in all the hidden nooks and crannies of London that those people down there never know exist. London _Below_." This time Bailey heard the capitals in the city name. "To all them," the marquis waved one rag-wrapped hand at the people hurrying to and fro on the sidewalks, "this may as well not exist. _You_ don't exist down there. You may not know it yet, but you're in _my_ world now." 

Bailey shivered. There was one thing, at least, he had learned from his former life that carried over to his new one-people never offered anything for free, and hardly anybody did anything that wasn't, strictly speaking, for themselves. "I don't trust you." 

The marquis laughed, head thrown back and dark hair framed against the red sky, his breath forming great puffs of steam in the cold air. "What do you know? You're not quite as dumb as I thought, then. You might even last a whole year." 

Bailey blinked, as, slowly, certain wheels and tumblers clicked into place in his head. "Here, how'd you even know I was up here?" 

The marquis's dark eyes twinkled. "A little bird told me." 

Bailey glanced around him, at the birds that had been flying in during the course of their conversation, landing on the rooftop and any convenient outlying bits of masonry, watching the two of them talk with unblinking eyes and no hints of fear. His heart beat fast. "You mean... me little friends... they..." 

"Can talk? Yes," the marquis answered. "In a manner of speaking." The marquis paused a moment, to make sure that no other comments were forthcoming, and then paced back and forth with a long, loping stride while he spoke. "Various of the birds have asked me-at some great disaccommodation to myself, I may add-for my help on your behalf. It's not what I would have chosen, but my job is not to question my clients' stupidity, but to profit from it." 

Bailey nodded. That, at least, made sense. This was not a man, it struck him, who would do anything without some sort of ulterior, and preferably profitable, motive. Yet despite his earlier words, he couldn't help wanting to trust the marquis. There was, in spite of his flippantly insulting words, an air of real charm about him. "Me friends hired you to help me," Bailey said wonderingly. "So, then, wotcha going to do for me? Teach me to pull food out of the air or something?" 

The marquis snorted. "They asked me to come help you-they never specified anywhere what form or how permanent that help was to be. Why, I could decide that merely by gracing you with my sparkling presence, that I was helping you to better appreciate the splendors of life." The marquis grinned his cat grin again, and leaned back against the chimney. "Possibly, I could help you by simply giving you some food, so that you don't starve to death this week." He pulled a pomegranate from an inner pocket, and began to toss it into the air and catch it. Bailey tracked it with his eyes and felt his mouth water. He hadn't had fruit in six months or longer. "Or," the marquis continued, lobbing the pomegranate from hand to hand, "we could make arrangements for a more permanent method of obtaining sustenance." 

Bailey bristled. "What's wrong with me way of life? I'm surviving, ain't I?" 

"Ha! Call this surviving, old fool?" The marquis snorted and tucked the pomegranate into his pocket again. Bailey felt a twinge of disappointment rumble through his belly as it disappeared. "Besides, that's just the least of your problems. Be glad that I'm the first one from London Below to come calling." The marquis pushed himself off from the chimney and leaned forward to make his point, his eyes narrowed. "Not everyone is as nice as I am." 

Bailey shivered. He had the feeling he wouldn't want to meet anybody this man considered not nice. 

The marquis resumed his pacing. "Now look, I haven't got all day. Time is money, and you're quickly running out of currency. If you want, I can just give you a blanket and a good meal and get out of your little nest here for good. But if you'd like to try to ensure your more enduring survival, we can set up our own terms. So decide, what's it going to be?" 

Bailey considered the offer and considered his life as it had been, as it had led him to this moment, standing shivering on a tar- and shit-stained roof with a strange dark man presenting him with the sort of bargain generally only found in fairy tales. 

He'd had a wife once. Her name was Mavis, and, after twenty-three years of marriage, he still had not known one whit more about than when they first met. There were no children. When none had appeared after the first few years of marriage, Mavis had made vague noises about seeing a doctor, but in the end, neither had cared enough to do anything about it. When the War started, and so many of their neighbors lost sons to the mustard gas and the shelling, they'd consoled each other that, after all, their barrenness had probably been for the best. Sometimes, though, Bailey had liked to look at the young girls that came in to the shoe store. They would giggle and try on the shoes without buying anything, and he would smile and imagine that they were his daughters. He'd spun fantasies in which they called him Daddy and asked him for advice on their schoolwork and boys. The girls had usually ignored him, but twice he'd been called in to Mr. Mulhoney, the manager's office, because of reports that customers found him staring strangely at them. 

Three weeks after he turned forty-eight, Mr. Mulhoney had come to him with the bad news. Mr. Freebisher, the owner, had decided to retire. There was to be a pension, of course, but it wasn't much, what with deflation and rebuilding and the economy being the way it was. Bailey had been sorry to hear the news, but not concerned at first. It hadn't seemed possible to him then that there could ever come a day when he wouldn't wake up at six, make his lunch, take the Tube down to Paddington, and clock in to work promptly at eight. Perhaps that was why he hadn't said anything to Mavis. There, was little, after all, that he thought would change, save perhaps his Tube stop and the particular bench on which he'd sat and fed the pigeons. 

But work had been harder to find than he had thought. The shops were all looking for someone younger or more experienced or in better shape. He'd always preferred chatting with he customers to dealing with the administrative side of things, and none of the new shops wanted salesmen. They wanted young women in their outlandish hair and clothes to mess with their newfangled equipment and blare their discordant music. When the stores had asked him to work the machines, he'd peered and pecked hesitantly until the interviewers had given up. Bailey had slowly spent less and less time on the job search, and had instead wandered the streets and parks, staring at the crowds of people and feeding the birds. 

One day, in desperation for privacy after a particularly depressing interview, he had climbed a rickety fire escape and sat on the rooftop. He still isn't sure if he had been contemplating suicide, but when he had finally reached the top he'd sat on the edge of the building and looked down at the people and cars rushing about below him like clock-work miniatures. He'd found it hard to believe, up here, that he could have any connection to them down there. A sparrow had fluttered to a halt beside him on the ledge, and cocked its tiny brown head at him. He'd stared into its shiny black eyes as it examined him and realized, suddenly, he felt more at kin with this small bird than he did with the scurrying people below, with whom he shared nothing more than a common shape. 

As the days had gone by, and the level of the exchequer had dwindled and flickered out, he'd spent most of his days perched on various rooftops. He'd found that people seldom bothered to lock stair doors, or, even if they did, the locks soon opened themselves under his hands. Bailey had decided not to think about what it might mean, lest the gift be taken away from him, denying him access to the sky. He hadn't even bothered with job interviews anymore, preferring to fill his time with watching the streets below and the skies above. The pigeons and starlings and rooks and chimney sweeps all had flocked to him at lunchtime, and he crumbled his bread into small pellets for them. His favorite roof was one where the only means of access was a small, rust-covered ladder affixed to the side of the building coming up from the top floor. There, Bailey had dragged up an abandoned, broken-legged office chair and fixed a couple of boards into a niche beside the chimney to shelter him, so that he didn't have to leave, even when it rained. 

The roofs had been there for Bailey when Mavis confronted him, one evening after he returned home. She had wielded a blue envelope from the bank, demanding remittance on their account for bounced cheques and returned bills. She'd told him to pack his things and yelled that she would be seeing a solicitor in the morning. He had retreated before her resentment, leaving all his goods behind. After all, the birds did not care what he wore. 

He had turned his temporary shelters into permanent ones, lugging up scraps of dumpster-rescued cloth and tarpaulin, lashing them together with rope, and settled into the routine that had become more or less permanent for him. He woke whenever the sun rose high enough to shine into his eyes, and greeted whichever of the birds were roosting in the corners or just stretching their throats for their dawn performances. Then he built up his fire, and looked to see what the birds had brought him for the day. They brought him bits of string and scraps of rag, shiny buttons, scraps of paper and soggy chips. He ate the chips, burned the paper, and stuffed old sacks with the rest, making sure to praise each bird for its contribution. When the sun went down and the birds would gather close on the roof around him, Bailey would tell them stories-real ones about his life before the roofs, the half-remembered bits of ones his mother had told him as a child, and made-up tales of exotic lands and dark strangers and quests for secret treasures. These last usually wound up getting more and more highly convoluted until finally Bailey lost his train of thought and concluded with a hurried, "and then everything worked out and they lived happily ever after." He was never sure if the birds understood his stories, but since they sat there every night for them, Bailey continued telling them. 

He had the freedom of all the blue sky above him, and the companionship of his birds, so what more did he need from life? Well, Bailey _would_ be happier if he never had to set foot on ground again. He hated going down, even for food, and spent longer and longer periods on the roofs without ever setting foot on the ground, only venturing downwards when forced to. The low lands made him nervous. He saw eyes now, yellow and red, peeping from the sewer grates and storm drains where before he'd seen nothing, and once a dark, misshapen thing that walked on two legs like a man but was covered in hair, attacked him when he tried to cut through an alleyway at night. After that he kept his foraging trips to the daylight hours. It didn't seem to make much difference, as he found that most people stared right through him now. Bailey hated when they did that; it made him feel like he'd died and nobody had told him. When he was on the ground, Bailey caught himself craning his neck upwards to see the patches of blue between the buildings. Maybe there was a way to get from roof to roof without having to ever go down. 

Bailey looked around at his birds, who were eyeing him with all the quiet solemnity of a crowd of judges. Even the tiny finches were unusually silent, although when one caught him glancing at it, it gave a tiny peep of approval. Or perhaps, he thought, it was merely urging him to hurry up his decision. He stared at the throng of birds that jostled each other for space on the ledges, and past them, to the hazy winter sky where flocks of starlings and ravens and crows wheeled to and fro. 

"I want..." What did he want? He looked at his only friends again, and thought hard. "I want to be able to talk to my little friends. To the birdses that sit beside me and calls to me from the air. You said you can do it, and I want to be able to do it too." This comment caused the mass of birds that now crowded all the edges of the roof and perched on every space they could find to raise up a great cacophony of squawks and coos and peeps that sounded positively gleeful. The marquis shot them an irritated glance, but didn't say anything, so Bailey grew bolder. He leaned forward and poked his grimy finger at the marquis's top waistcoat button. "And I want to know all about the rooftops and how to get around from rooftop to rooftop without ever having to set foot on the ground again. And I want to know all about London Below and how to keep meself safe up here." He lowered his finger, grinning shakily in triumph. 

"Anything else? Would you perhaps care to have the treasure of Saint Percival and a cask of ambergris as well, or will that suffice?" the marquis retorted. 

As Bailey spluttered in indignation, the marquis waved his hands and cut him off. "No, no, no. I'm sure I can fulfill your requirements _somehow_." The marquis sighed and made a great show of being hard put-upon. Bailey found himself apologizing before he realized it, and the marquis acknowledged his apology with a downward tilt of his head. When he raised his head, the marquis's grin was back in place. "Very well, then. Now there remains only the small matter of your payment." 

Ah, there it was. Just like Mavis and the banks and all the shops down below. Everybody demanded payment, and he had nothing to give them. "I ain't got no money," he said. 

"Money? When did I ever say I wanted money? No, I need _pay - ment_." The marquis smiled in anticipation of a bargain sealed and leaned back against the chimney, his eyes sharp on Bailey's face. 

"What do you want then, me soul?" 

The marquis snorted. "Your soul? What the devil would I do with that? I already told you I'm no modern Mephistopheles, come to barter your life for riches and power everlasting. I deal in favors. I do you a favor, and sometime down the line, you do me a favor." He stepped forward and smiled down at Bailey with all the guileless innocence of a professional conman. "Simple enough, isn't it?" 

It _sounded_ simple, all right. It also sounded too good to be true, but if it wasn't-it meant he'd have to trust someone who warned him in practically every breath not to do so. But it also meant he'd never have to go downstairs again, and he'd never, ever be alone. 

He'd probably end up regretting this, Bailey thought, but he stuck out his hand. "It's a deal." The birds perched all around on the edges of the wall ruffled their feathers and bobbed their heads in satisfaction. Their bargain was complete now. The marquis would let them know when he needed to call in his favor. 

"Good." The marquis's hand was small and hot under Bailey's own, and he gripped Bailey's hand tightly. "We'll be needing a few things first, and then you're going to see a friend of mine." The marquis grinned. "He owes me a favor." He rubbed his hands together briskly and set off without looking back across the rooftop. "Don't forget to put out the fire. We won't be back for quite a while. Unless, of course, you'd like to burn the building down." 

Bailey hastened to stamp out and scatter the small fire, now nearly dead from lack of fuel. "Wait, wait, where we going? Are you taking me _down_?" 

The marquis spun around. "Of course. After all, I can't ask _him_ to come up here, now can I?" 

"And why not?" squawked Bailey, hovering between indignation that his home might not be considered good enough for other people, and sheer terror at having to face the prospect of life at ground level, for however temporary a period a time. 

"The griffin, whatever you may have deduced from heraldry, does not, in fact, fly very well at all, and at his age I hesitate to ask him to climb the side of a building." 

"Griffin?" Bailey stared at him for a minute, but the marquis did not seem to be any more noticeably insane than he had a few minutes ago, so he decided that, for the moment, he would take him at his word. Besides, he decided, a griffin was just a big bird that got crossed a bit with a cat, so _he_ 'd be all right. "Griffin. Right," he muttered, kicking out one last stray coal, and waving a good-bye to the birds that hadn't scattered as soon as the agreement had been concluded. He'd be back soon, and know how to say a proper good-bye, in bird talk. Then they'd be able to talk to each other about things, like all the building going on in the blitzed sections, and where the roofs were the best, and they could tell each other stories. It would be worth seeing a griffin for that. 

"By the by," the marquis called over his shoulder, as he strolled across the rooftop towards his exit ladder, "I'll need to know your name." 

Bailey blinked. It was almost hard to remember it now; it seemed to belong to someone else. "Bailey," he called finally, the name sticking in his throat. 

"Old Bailey, eh?" The marquis looked up at him from the first step of the ladder and cocked an insouciant grin. "I like it. Has a nice ring to it." The marquis paused, and stared at him, still standing in the middle of the roof. "Well, come on, then, get going. Time is wasting." Bailey still stood, frozen, in the middle of the roof. The marquis sighed and reached into his pocket. "Here," he called, and tossed the pomegranate he'd been juggling earlier to Bailey, who caught it automatically. "Let's go." 

Slowly, Old Bailey nodded. He tucked the pomegranate into his pocket and followed the marquis de Carabas down. 

 


End file.
